


Down with the Lights (and up very softly with the music)

by icearrows1200



Category: The Odd Couple (1968)
Genre: Angst, Falling In Love, Jewish Character, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Sexual Frustration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-28
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2019-12-25 23:23:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18271208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icearrows1200/pseuds/icearrows1200
Summary: New York, 1965. Oscar and Felix are unlikely roommates, but it isn't long before the feelings Oscar has been repressing for decades of his life surface and complicate their relationship. A collection of non-linear one-shots.





	1. Frame

The lights sometimes flicker and the sink always drips. There is a crack in the doorframe. How many times has Oscar slammed it? Out of anger, frustration, sadness? It splinters and snaps, giving and bowing under an unseen weight. 

“Why don’t you fix it?” Felix has asked, more than once. His requests are thinly veiled demands.

“It’ll hold out a little longer,” Oscar proposes with an affectionate smile—directed toward the frame. “Why don’t you?”

But Felix can’t. He buys new light bulbs and calls the plumber, but the doorframe—he keeps. He is almost curious to count how many more slams it can withstand before the door comes crashing down on the apartment floor. 

The apartment has eight rooms and every single one of them has some sort of structural issue. Felix has a mind to find out what buffoon built this fairly new apartment. And yet he is often reminded that it’s been in Oscar’s charge for more than a decade. If the floor tile is dislodged, or the wallpaper crinkles and chips like dead oak leaves, the fault lies with its keeper, not creator. 

To Felix’s utter frustration, (a feeling that has begun to make his jaw ache with anger and his nerves fray with fury) the rack in the coat closet suddenly decides to completely collapse—while he is standing underneath it. Jackets, trench coats, and hats (and even a leftover pastrami sandwich, whatever that’s doing in there) belonging to both men land about him. Up to his knees in apparel, with a feeling of hopeless fury rising in his chest, Felix shouts for Oscar, who is elsewhere within the apartment. He doesn’t respond, of course, because Felix is the roommate who cried wolf one too many times. But this time—this time…

“What is it?” Finally, a delayed response, like an echo.

Felix holds his tongue, so Oscar rounds the corner. 

“I said: what—“ Oscar stops when he sees the man in the coat closet, brought to his knees by the weight of woe and heavy fabric.

“The coats fell,” Felix answers simply. “I think the rack was unbalanced.”

And Oscar cracks a smile. It’s an endearing smile, nothing cruel or mischievous. For the first time, Felix notices how soft Oscar’s expression can be. There’s a light behind his wrinkled eyes that makes Felix’s stomach churn with general apprehension. 

“Come on,” Oscar says, extending a hand. Felix takes it. “I’ll help you pick them up.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, sure, Feel. Coats aren’t a problem. Just don’t try to fix the door. It’s got another while left.”


	2. Cline

His toes poke out from underneath the blanket. But to fix it, the blanket would have to be rearranged, and the day has been far too long to move another muscle before dawn. The blanket is strewn diagonally across the square bed in a way that might remind someone who is watching from overhead of David’s Star. A thought drifts absently to his grandfather. The dreidel he spun for his grandson, an heirloom of the religion he would not inherit. Oscar is a little ashamed that he didn’t take it after the funeral, pass it on to his own son when he was old enough.

The thoughts drift away with the ebb of his sleepiness when the mattress shifts on his right. He involuntarily cracks a small smile. Felix announces his presence with a little clear of his throat.

“I don’t mind,” Oscar answers honestly. Felix never explains why he does this peculiar habit as frequently as he does, and Oscar feels shame at the thought of breaching the topic. But if he had to guess (and he has), it would seem that Felix isn’t accustomed to sleeping on his own since the divorce. Maybe he can’t.

“Did I wake you?” Felix whispers.

 “No. No, I was still awake.” Oscar wonders at what force of nature was so powerful to convince Felix that sleeping with his roommate in a filthy pigsty was more appealing than sleeping alone. He extends a hand and gives Felix an affectionate pat on the head. And lets his hand. Stay. His fingers run gently through the neatly trimmed locks once, then twice, before he dares withdraw his arm.

 “Sorry,” he apologizes, for no reason at all.

“Hmm,” Felix hums ambiguously.

 Oscar’s breathing becomes inexplicably shallow and ugh, does he find it _infuriating_ when his body decides to fabricate stories of its own. His pulse thrums in his throat. His legs feel like noodles.

 He feels like a stupid little boy again, yanking a girl’s pigtails for attention. Except this time, he’s gentler—this time, it’s a man.

Felix exhales but it comes out in sputters, like a dying engine. Even in the darkness, Oscar can see him cover his mouth with his hand. Felix is usually starved for attention and somehow never is sated. When he cries (which is often), it is an event, a spectacle. But a thought occurs to Oscar:

He is not asking for attention. He is asking for comfort.

His hand feels like a thousand pounds, but he manages to move it again—like a crane, like an anchor, like two weeks of thick tension—and awkwardly grips Felix’s bicep. Almost instantly, he cries harder, and Oscar’s heart breaks sadly in half.

 “I miss her so much,” Felix sobs. “I never thought it would end this way.”

  Oscar falls to pieces. Like that Patsy Cline song:

_You walk by_

_and I_

_fall to pieces._

You absolute ham, he chastises himself.  His heart hammers too loudly, his brain buzzes with unwanted thoughts, and it becomes evident that sleep will never be so kind as to put him out of this wretched misery. Would it be that difficult to admit it to himself? Push the words through his skull, let them bounce around within the safety of his head, never letting them slip onto his tongue where they might still escape.

“Go to bed, Felix.” Those words are the ones that tumble out instead.

“I can’t,” He hiccoughs. On his pillow, a puddle of tears stains the fabric dark.

Oscar takes a deep breath and releases Felix’s surprisingly toned arm. “Your own bed. Felix.”

Something vanishes from Felix’s bloodshot eyes. An alabaster slice of moonlight casts itself on the far wall. Oscar fixes his attention on the latter.

“You need to stop coming in here.”

“I’m sorry.”

This is going to hurt. More than it already does. But Oscar knows it’s for both of their sakes (who knows what might happen, given the chance?). In the morning, they can pretend—as usual—that the night keeps secrets and that daylight grants amnesia.

“If you were sorry, you would leave.”

The words sound oddly rehearsed, despite that they are hardly understood before being spoken.

Yanking the blanket off of himself, Felix, probably embarrassed, scrambles out of Oscar’s bed. “Why can’t you be there when I need you?” Felix snaps, whispering to avoid the ears of an invisible audience. “I’d be there if you needed me.”

“I don’t need you,” Oscar sneers. Maybe this one won’t be so easy to ignore come morning. “I have no idea what you’re trying to get me to do. Are you some kind of queer?”

“No!” Felix shouts—maybe a little too quickly. “No. Why does everything have to mean something?”

“Because things _mean_ things,” Oscar responds stupidly. He waits a half a moment, wondering if Felix can hear his telltale heartbeat. “You make me feel like half a man.” 

Felix’s sigh is a tangible hybrid between exasperation and wonder. “Are you crazy? No one can _make_ you feel that way.”

Oscar resigns to hoping that Felix has not found the truth among this fog of words. “Goodnight.”

Wiping his eyes, Felix leaves the room wordlessly. Oscar falls asleep beside a pillow damp with his roommate’s tears and mourns that they were not shed over him.

 


	3. Moon River

A theater down the street is showing _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ again. Convincing (bribing with cleaning privileges) Felix to join him is all part of the grand plan Oscar has concocted. As of late, the dejected New Yorker has become something of a romance aficionado: suddenly, sunsets are a thousand times more vibrant, love songs were written just for him, and sappy romance movies with handsome men and pretty women are on the top of Oscar’s list. He wants to tap dance up and down Manhattan, armed with a cane and a Vaudeville swing. He wants to lasso the moon, drag it close to the Earth so it will hang over the Hudson River like an enormous, romantic baseball. Homerun.

 Oscar has been in love a total of two times during his life. (Three, now.)

 Maybe this information is rather private, but as long as it doesn’t escape the confines of written word, the story can be relayed, albeit briefly and discreetly.

 One. Johnny Swain, Private first class. No more questions, please.

 Two. Blanche Fairfax, ex-wife. With Blanche he had tried to be more serious, gentlemanly. The marrying type. Big gestures in a well-tailored suit with the occasional irresistible smile that can turn a woman’s knees to jelly. That, naturally, was his downfall. Oscar was such a lousy gentleman that he couldn’t hold up the ruse more than a few years, and by then they had two children and a rather nice apartment. Nonetheless disgusted and very much _out of love,_ Blanche took the children and left Oscar with the monstrosity of an empty apartment.

Three. Felix Ungar. Felix and his handsome face. Felix and his toothy smile. Felix and _bad idea, Oscar_ his stupid hand is only an inch away from Oscar’s and the movie theater is draped in darkness. Felix’s eyes are transfixed on the film—he always _does_ get so invested in movies. Meanwhile, Oscar has struggled to keep up with whatever Audrey Hepburn is doing on screen. He does like the song, though. _Moon River._

Felix’s palm is facing the ceiling, almost as if he’s expecting it to be held. If Felix were a woman, Oscar would not have even bothered with the formality of handholding. In a mostly empty theater, they could sit in the back and neck like a couple of teenagers. Yet Felix is _not_ a woman and while he is drunk with love, he isn’t blind with it. He knows extremely well that one wrong move may have disastrous consequences.

Which is why he has opted to create the most ideal circumstances with the lowest stakes. There are a few possible outcomes:

He could place his hand in Felix’s and if he receives a perplexed or disgusted look, Oscar will retract his hand, claiming he was so engrossed in the movie that he was unaware of what he was doing.

Or, when their hands finally make contact and Felix makes no response, Oscar will steal a glance at his roommate and gauge his expression, making a final decision based on that.

Lastly—and this is the best outcome, the one caught in Oscar’s imagination, replaying a scene that has never happened over and over again—Oscar will place his hand in Felix’s, and Felix will reciprocate, lacing their fingers together, shifting closer to him, _something_.

It’s astonishing how much effort is required to move his hand an infinitesimally short distance. The prospect is exhausting. Butterflies ruminate in his stomach, sweat collects on his neck.

Here goes nothing. How hard can it be? Just move your hand another half inch—

“Are you feeling all right?”

Oscar almost jumps out of his seat. It took him the better part of an hour to gain the nerve, and almost instantly it wanes, recedes.

“You seem uncomfortable,” Felix says, not without genuine concern.

Oscar folds his arms at his chest, inadvertently putting an impassible distance between their hands. _Shit_. 

“Of course I’m fine,” he whispers. “Now be quiet. I’m trying to watch the movie.”

With a humored scoff, Felix turns back to face the screen. There’s a ghost of a smirk on his lips (not that Oscar’s looking). “Really? I thought you were watching me.”


	4. Juice

Oscar’s dreams become consumed by Felix. During the day, his sanity is ground down to fine sand; at night, when he finally is allowed some respite from his roommate, Felix washes Oscar over, muddles the water, makes everything so unclear and confusing. Sometimes he appears in the form of a woman, other times as himself, looking as Oscar never thought a man _could_ look. 

Logically, a man is hardly in control of his dreams but nonetheless Oscar is shrouded in a pall of shame from dusk till dawn.

In one, Murray calls him at work to tell him that Felix is dead. The dream is not alarming (in fact, his dream self hardly bats an eye) until he attends the funeral and sees not Felix, but Oscar himself in the casket. Felix, who sits among a handful of timidly grieving shadows, is able to see the real, living Oscar, and embraces him for a moment that is absurdly long, even for a dream.

In another, less clear dream, Felix drowns in the Hudson River and Oscar must relay the news to Frances. It’s his fault, but he couldn’t begin to know why.

Last night’s dream, from which he just awoke, is not something he can bring himself to recall more than once. With paranoia he sulks about the apartment, avoiding Felix under the guise of being in a particularly bad mood. The images seem to hang about his head like a filthy cloud, so dense that he fears Felix will somehow see them.

For once in his life he dislikes feeling so dirty.

“You’re acting strange,” Felix states. It’s not a question nor inquiry.

Oscar keeps his gaze glued to the newspaper. “No, I’m not.”

“I can tell when you’re upset with me,” Felix begins. He raises his eyebrows with disdain. “And when you’re upset with me, you tell me. You haven’t said a word all day. Which means you’re upset about something else.”

Oscar peers over the top of his newspaper. Best to play ignorant, lest he dig himself into yet another hole. “You’re wrong. I’m not upset.”

“Oh. Well, then.” Felix claps his hands together. “Let’s go out. We’ve saved enough for a few weeks, so I see no problem in getting a few drinks. What do you say?"

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later Oscar has a scotch in his right hand and Felix at an appropriate distance from his left. The bar is classy but not exclusive. Felix fits right in but Oscar feels visible. Cities were built to hide people, but New York is doing an extremely poor job at the moment.

“You know,” Felix offers, “I don’t mind that you’re Jewish. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

Oscar could fly into the sun. What a ridiculous statement. Half the people he knows are Jews. And Oscar only manages to find a sliver of religion at family gatherings on his father’s side. Only Jewish in name, and yet Oscar sees the opportunity and nabs it before it’s too late. What an utterly fabulous excuse.

“Yeah,” He lies. “Thanks, Feel.”

Three drinks later, Oscar feels a lot better. Felix is talking nonsensically about his children’s handwriting while Oscar stares dumbly at his mouth for the better part of twenty minutes. The bar gurgles with ambient speech and the clink of glasses. Dim lights, soft music. Absolutely everything screams romance and Oscar wonders if he’s become a hopeless romantic, a creep, or both. The drinks help him fight off the feeling.

“Frances never understood me,” Felix slurs. “I just want things done right. I mean, you hate it, too, Oscar. You hate it when I over-clean, but at least you under _stand_ it. You wouldn’t divorce me for something like that.”

“I would _never_ divorce you, Felix,” Oscar says without hesitating. The little voice in the back of his head that cautions him to be careful, oh so careful, grows frightfully more and more silent with each breath. Dangerously, both Felix and Oscar are the same variety of drunk: romantic.

“Women want so much out of us,” Felix muses, suddenly philosophical. “I should have moved in with you years ago.”

“I don’t think Blanche would have liked that.”

“Men are much more straightforward. No ‘saying this but meaning that.’”

“I uh, I’m not sure about that,” Oscar responds forlornly. “I think women almost always say what they mean, at least in my experience. Maybe they left us because we couldn’t do the same.”

“Not true, not true.” Felix offers a raised finger in objection. “There are things we can say to each other that we couldn’t say to our wives.”

Oscar—you little _shit_ —puts his chin in his palm. Smiles. Bats his eyes.

“Like what?”

“Like.” A smirk growing on his mouth, Felix searches the room for the answer. He giggles like a schoolgirl before he manages to produce the words. “Like… I once cheated on Frances.”

Oscar, genuinely surprised, has a moment of clarity. “Really?”

“Mhm. Yeah. See? I could never say that to Frances for—obvious reasons, but I can tell _you_ because you understand what it’s like and you understand—“

“Wait, wait, wait—“ Oscar interrupts. There is something about the revelation that is entirely unpalatable. Like the liquor it is slightly unpleasant going down and the feeling remains long after the moment of ingestion. Hangs around. Festers. “When did this happen?”

Taking a sip from his drink, Felix gives Oscar a look of indifference over the rim of his glass. “During the war. While Frances and I were engaged.”

The words seem to be coming from a stranger’s mouth. Something wasn’t adding up: Felix did next to nothing besides sit at home and wistfully recall life with his wife and children. And yet here they were: in a bar—per Felix’s request—digesting a particularly uncharacteristic confession.

“What happened to _that_ Felix? Last I checked, having an affair doesn’t exactly line up with rules and order and laws and shit.”

“Well…” Felix begins with a sense of triumph, “maybe you don’t know me as well as you think, Oscar Madison. Maybe I—maybe I like going out, getting drunk, breaking the rules.”

“You _don’t_.”

“Maybe I _do_.”

Surrendering, Oscar laughs into his drink. He’s drunk enough now that he can admit for the first time how unforgivably cute Felix is. His strict demeanor struggles to contain whatever beast or burden that lies within, and what results is a red-faced, snickering monstrosity.

“Who was it?” He prods. “A nurse? A whore?”

“You,” Felix starts, gripping Oscar’s shoulder tightly, “are asking a lot of questions. My turn. I want to ask you questions.”

“I can’t believe you cheated on her,” Oscar deflects honestly. He is truly baffled, no lie there.

To Oscar’s indifferent dismay, Felix removes his hand from his shoulder and shifts defensively in his chair. “I was scared. We all were. All right? It’s not like I was ever, you know, absolutely positive I would even _get_ to come home and marry Frances.” Even intoxicated, there is a clarity to Felix’s voice that Oscar abhors. “And you know what? I’m surprised to hear objections from you. You’re not a beacon of morality yourself.”

As usual, he’s correct. Blanche caught him in a few lies on a handful of occasions.

“You’re right. I just meant to say that I was surprised because, you know. _You’re you_.”

“I’m me.”

“Yeah. And I think I know you best, Feel. We’re close friends, right?”

Felix beams sadly. “Of course. Yeah, yeah. Of course. But I think you can be the closest of friends without knowing everything about them. It’s important to—I mean I personally like to have one or two things to keep as my own.”

Oscar begrudgingly accepts this with a nod that’s half affirmation and half fatigue. He’s drooping, wilting, wobbling, wheezing into a state of pretending he can’t hear Felix tell him about the shape of a woman’s body—as if he didn’t already know—and he burns with hot, swollen jealousy.

How he got home, he can extrapolate from some blurred, messy memories. Drank far more than he should have, was in every sense of the word, and on every level, aroused and in love and excruciatingly enraged.

Oscar didn’t believe in God, but he thanked him when he awoke the next morning very much alone.


End file.
